“Thank you, Elliot,” Rachel told him.
The two wild beasts Luke had brought in with him—into the house, in fact into the area of the house were food was prepared—wandered over to Elliot. Their long, plumy tails waved cautiously: their long, sharp teeth were bared.
“I haven’t had my rabies shot,” said Elliot, circling. The dogs circled after him in what he considered was a menacing fashion.
“How can you be scared of the puppies?” Rachel asked.
“I am not scared of them,” Elliot replied with dignity. “I am just not accustomed to them, so I do not trust them.”
He had to admit that the dogs did not seem currently interested in devouring him whole. However, this might change at any moment.
“Cavall, Culaine,” said Luke, and the dogs backed off a little. “You like mermaids and centaurs and stuff, though.”
“They’re not animals,” said Elliot. “I can talk with them, so they’re people. I enjoy intelligent conversation. You know, the polysyllabic kind. I realize you’re still at monosyllables, but I have faith you’ll get there one day.”
“Uh-huh,” said Luke, not doing anything to justify said faith.
Elliot regarded the dogs with suspicion, then glanced up at Luke, who was looking at him. It was a moment of mutual embarrassment: they were not used to being without Serene, and yet they should obviously pretend to be friends, or Luke’s mother would wonder why Elliot was here.
“The thing is,” Elliot announced. “I think I left the oven on in—”
“Mum,” said Luke, rudely interrupting. “Can we have the key to the library?”
“The library?” Elliot asked, diverted from his purpose.
“My Great-Uncle Theodore was wounded in the Wars of the Rainbow Serpents and couldn’t fight again, so he spent his whole life collecting books,” Rachel said. “Poor old boy. Don’t let the dogs in with you, Luke.”
She took a ring, heavy with keys, off the wide belt slung around her hips, and tossed it to Luke, who caught it easily, and Elliot followed him as he went out of the kitchen and round and round and round the stairs to the very top of the tower, where they stopped at a large oak door.
The library was as big as the one at school, but quieter, with the air of long disuse. Sun streamed through half-closed curtains, and the air was thick with sunlight and silence, with gold and dust. Books rose to the ceiling, which rose to a point, with ladders that leaned against the walls.
“Is it OK to touch the books without gloves?”
“Why would you need gloves to touch a book?” Luke asked. Elliot decided that meant yes.
He climbed one of the ladders to get to one glinting embossed spine, to see if it could possibly be what he hoped it was going to be. It was.
He climbed down the ladder to display his prize to Luke.
“1,000 Leagues Across a Sea of Blood,” Luke said. “That’s a good title.”
The subtitle was Sea Monsters Demanding Sacrifice, Fanged Octopi & Murderous Mermaids I Have Known.
“It’s the account of a famous exploring party told by Maximilian Wavechaser. This voyage is how his family got their name,” Elliot explained, going over to the window and pulling the curtains open. He climbed onto the broad wooden windowseat built into the window, which was many-paned and also rose to a point, like a window in church. Luke climbed up to sit on the other side, and Elliot turned the pages until he found some of the drawings of the great naval battle four hundred years ago, made out in cerulean and gold, which he thought Luke would like.
In return Luke said that he did think it was possible that the mermaids of the deep sea communicated through hand gestures rather than speech, and asked Elliot to read the awful bit about battle tactics again. There were accounts of notable seafaring voyages undertaken in the last century at the end, including the journey led by Captain Whiteleaf’s father twenty years ago. It was a long and fascinating book, and Elliot was surprised when Luke said that he had to set the table for dinner.
“Have you boys been in the library all day?” Rachel asked, amazed. She ruffled Luke’s hair as he went by with the cutlery. “Who are you?”
“Elliot found a good book,” Luke said.
“I didn’t miraculously find the only book in there that was good,” Elliot argued.
Luke gave a tiny shrug. “I don’t know that. I’ve looked at other books in that library, and they’re boring.”
“You don’t know anything,” Elliot told him severely. “Statistically, you have to see that book being the only good one is not at all likely. The problem is you don’t get books. You tend to be an auditory or kinesthetic learner.”
“Hey!” said Luke.
Elliot was going to tell him that it wasn’t an insult, but then he decided it would be more hilarious not to. “I wish I had a radio,” he said. “They do readings of the classics on Sunday afternoons.”
“What’s a radio?” asked Rachel, while Luke sulked about being called a kinesthetic learner.
Elliot gave some thought about how to describe it. “It’s a magic box that says stuff and plays songs.”
“A music box?” Luke asked, scornfully. “We have music boxes.”
“No!” said Elliot. “It plays quite different songs.” He thought about the classic hits he listened to at home, filling his whole empty house with song, something that a mother might like, and sang a few lines of “When I’m Sixty-Four.” Rachel beat time on the lid of her pot.
“You have a nice voice, kid,” she said. “You could be a minstrel.”
“Oh, thank God, there are other jobs for people besides being a weird conscripted soldier on the Border camp,” Elliot said. “Logically there had to be, someone has to make the food, the world would be stupid and make no sense otherwise. But I was terrified it was all dumb killing people in the face.”
“Excuse you?” said a voice from the door. “Being a soldier is the noblest profession in the world.”
“Killing people in the face is a downside,” Elliot said. “You have to admit that. I’m Elliot Schafer, by the way.”
“Adam Sunborn,” said the boy, marching in. “And this is my brother, Neal.”
The two boys clattered in, walking as if they owned the room and possibly the world. They were Sunborns, clear as a fine day: big and blond and blue-eyed. They looked like practise sketches of Luke, before the artist had got him right. They spent all of dinnertime talking about how they hadn’t gone to the Border camp because they had been born and raised to fight, and Luke shouldn’t have either but should have come to serve in one of the lesser fortresses with them and learned through action.
“He could have been our comrade-in-arms,” said Neal.
“I’ve got one,” said Luke. “Her name’s Serene.”
“A girl?” Adam sneered.
“I think you should meet her,” said Luke, deceptively mild.
“I don’t think you need any more of this delicious stew, Adam,” said Rachel.